I think this is my fifth game in Sin of Solar Empire (Entrenchment) - i took on three "Unfair" Aggressor AI's, All Vasari (all teamed up against me) and man... it was such a long game, took me nearly a week to finish (played in intervals of 2-3 hours). Very very fun!
I played on the map "Systems of War", 5 stars, everything was set to fast (fast ship speed, culture, build) i started out by building three Sova Carriers and just one Colony Frig and of course, in the beginning of almost all games, it's a mad scramble for planets. I only managed to claim 8 planets, i lost 2 to AIs very quickly leaving to 6 only while the AIs hold around 50... One of those planets i named "Reach" was isolated in separate system deep inside Vasari territory and the AI's would keep attack and attacking. I put a starbase at Reach fully leveled with guns, hangar and armor/shields as well 140 Mines, 3 Repair platforms and the rest Gauss cannons, i took advantage of enemy attacking fleets by building all my cap ships at Reach to gain xp. After a couple of hours of literally non-stop attacks, i must've killed like 10,000 Vasari ships and 50 of their Caps with my Starbase and cap ships. I kept rebuilding mines, gauss platforms, i had lots of Sova's so i pumped out quite a few missile batteries.
After about 5 hours, i had 16 lvl 10 cap ships - 2 Kol's, 6 Sova (i love these things), an Akkan, 4 Dunov and 3 Marza. I had only researched a enough of fleet supply to support that many cap ships because i didn't want to penalize my resource income ( only had 6 planets ). I had only built a very small handful of Garda Frigs to kill fighters, AI's just love spamming those -.- .. it's interesting to note that i had the highest credit and crystal income despite possessing only 6 planets compared to the AI's...
In the 5 hours i researched most of the Civilian and military tree, and some of defence but def tree has alot of things that aren't really needed. I also placed fully leveled starbases as well as max Gauss platforms and mines on my remaining planets that weren't attacked as often and another three at the star's gravity well since all of its phase lines went to my planets.
Very very slowly, i built up a big fleet of Kodiaks, LRMs, Gardas.. Repair, Command and Torp Cruisers.. it was kinda hard to defend and attack at the same time, i usually bunch all my ships up into one mega-fleet rather than spread them out, cause of that i lost a couple of full-leveled starbases, fun to watch "Last Resort" go off.
I built about 6 Novaliths after about 7 hours, by now i had about 15ish planets. But on some occasions, a Novalith Warhead would land on of my planets... Novalith fires warhead at planet, whilst in transit, i take the planet and colonise, warhead lands, my colonists die...so i turned off autocast.
Vasari fully upgraded starbases slows me quite a bit, i remember taking on one supported by 2 massive fleets from two different AIs packed with enforcers and overseers. Lost a lvl 10 there and 600 supplies worth of ships, all my Ogrov's died in previous battles so my caps had to work harder to bring the enemy down.
Marza's siege cannon really shine... three of them they wipe out a planet with 6000 health in less then a minute - surprised the planet doesn't get blown to bits.
Almost every system i had to conquer had a starbase, some were not upgraded so they died instantly. It's funny to watch AI build a starbase in one my system, when they finish, the starbase charges at my dozen-packed Guass cannons and it dies, i just love how they charge straight for my dense pack of cannons. Vasari starbase quite bizarre btw
I didn't manage to conquer every system, they just surrendered so yay ~! ( i continued game and killed them all anyway)
It's also interesting to note that the AI's don't build Kostura cannons, they seem to build very weak economies as well and love looking for artifacts. They also employ pathetic strategies when attacking starbases, - being Vasari lacks anti-structure ships so i dunno.. they did throw a couple hundred of enforcers, transporters and overseers very frequently though.
Just thought sharing it was kinda fun, love the game! 
If i could offer a some my opinions on the Cap ships :
Sova is always the first ship i deploy, max bombers. When attacking neutral worlds, the militia like targeting my batteries, leaving my Sova alone, the batteries are quite durable and do some damage esp. at lvl 3. The instant strikecraft build is such tide turner in a battle. I had 6 Sova Carriers in the game, when all bombers die, i press some buttons and they're back again at full strength... Embargo, i heard it's extremely useful in rushes but i have only played long games so far..
Kol is kinda basic, i don't have much to say about it, it seems like general purpose warship that runs out of anti-matter instantly, i like its design. i mainly get it for the Railgun and finest hour ability which i pair up with Dunov's flux field.
Dunov, i get these for the shields, magnet and flux field. With so many Vasari bombers milling about, i figure the magnet might be useful, the flux field lets me pump Missile batteries like mad. The shield restoring thing saved my lvl 10s from dying lots of times.
Marza, i love its design, i get it to blow away planets, anyone notice that this thing kinda of fragile? i lost 3 of these while fighting, they were only lvl 4s so yeeaahh - I heard its radiation bomb was really useful so i got more of them partially cause of that.
Akkan, i only get this to colonize, i build one of these when i start to take enemy planets and when i have max fleet. I only build one. Target uplink is also something i find useful i guess - i hardly use armistice.
